


A place for you

by chaoticlivi



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Other, POV Second Person, Scene: The Bus Stop (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21927784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticlivi/pseuds/chaoticlivi
Summary: A short imagining of Aziraphale's thoughts at the bus stop in Tadfield.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	A place for you

“It says Oxford on the front,” you observe, wondering if this means you’ll have to wait for another bus.

“Yeah, but he’ll drive to London. He just won’t know why.”

Ah.

What you suspect he’s planning is the thing that you want, and the thing that you want is not the thing that you _should_ want.

You should want him to see you off and then…go away. Surely, if he could take the Bentley to the stars, he could get out there without it, too. He should be leaving. Hell wants him dead. Heaven wants him dead. Even fleeing to the stars might not be good enough to escape their grudges, not now that it’s as personal as it is, but certainly it’s a safer option than lingering about in London.

You’ve used up all your courage, pitiful little trickle that it was in the first place.

“I suppose I should have him drop me off at the bookshop,” you say. You’re testing the water. He’ll know.

There is a moment of quiet, and you have a feeling you’re about to be hurt. When he does speak, his voice is soft, regretful. He doesn’t want to be saying this. “It burned down. Remember?”

Oh. Right. You don’t have a place here anymore. But you’re not going to cry about it. You chose this.

“You can stay at my place, if you’d like,” he murmurs, so gentle.

And your heart clenches, trying to kill the hope before you can properly feel it. You don’t entirely succeed. Crowley is trying to make a place for you, but if you go to it, they’ll catch you there. They’ll catch both of you.

“I don’t think my side would like that,” you remind him, and you offer a watery almost-smile to show that you’re not trying to offend him, you don’t think you’re enemies, this is not about loyalty, you’re so tired of this, you hate it, you don’t want to say no to him…but you have to. You’re not going to tempt fate worse than you already have. And you are absolutely not condemning him to Heaven.

“You don’t have a side anymore,” he says. You can’t possibly argue with that. Something in you will never give up on hoping, but it’s getting awfully hard to have faith. The cold truth of the matter is that Heaven will probably come for you no matter where in Creation you are because justice always gets its due, and they won’t find you in your bookshop because your bookshop is gone, and once you’re gone, too, there will well and truly be nothing left of you on Earth, or perhaps anywhere. “Neither of us does,” Crowley continues. “We’re on our own side.”

Yes, of course, but is that not why he should be leaving? He doesn’t leave you, you know that, but he should. He should be going. He should be gathering whatever things of meaning he has left in his apartment, and he should be leaving.

Unless…the prophecy is meant for the two of you. It seems like it might be yours, but it doesn’t address you directly like the one about your cocoa did. Playing with fire. What fire? Haven’t you already had enough fire for today? Was it a mistake to surrender the flaming sword?

“We’ll have to choose our faces wisely,” Crowley adds patiently, as if confirming for you that there is something there, a spark of hope, and oh, you should be quashing it, shouldn’t you? As he hails the bus, you think perhaps his way really is the best. Maybe Agnes’s last prophecy holds a secret.

You have never, in all of recorded time, felt this exhausted and he’s offering you rest. He’s offering you hope. He’s offering you the possibility that you might save him, too. But the last time he offered something like this, he didn’t really believe it – he just wanted help saving the world because he was helping you look for excuses to stay in it together. Do you only believe him now because it would be convenient for you?

The bus pulls up. Crowley stands, ahead of you as always, and looks at you.

You stand as well and gesture at the door, letting him in first.

For better or worse, he’s chosen you. He said as much in the bar. When he thinks you’re permanently gone, he just quits. He ought to leave you, but he won’t, not long enough to stay safe.

Accepting all of this, you give in. Perhaps the two of you will figure out what Agnes was writing about tonight. Perhaps it will be about you. And at the very least, maybe you’ll be there for each other when they come for you.

You’ve thought about taking his hand before, but it was always wrong. It would have encouraged him too much. You wouldn’t have been able to give it up. You take his hand on the bus now.

(Later, you'll look back on this moment and reflect about how there’s no dawn in Heaven or Hell, but there is on Earth, and the night is always darkest before it. But you will both see it tomorrow. And you will both see it the day after. And there will always be another dawn stretching out before the two of you, for the rest of time.)


End file.
